Steve203 wrote:
Picked up a copy of Hemmings today with a reprint of a 1981 interview SIA did with George Romney.

Regarding Packard, Romney was acting like the injured party. First he cried about Packard not buying stampings from AMC, in spite of the pricing I have seen elsewhere that AMC's bids were double and triple the price other stamping plants were bidding. Then he cried about Packard trying to buy the Briggs plant, which he called a "stamping plant", instead of buying stampings from AMC, when the facts were Packard needed a full body plant, not just stampings, Packard was forced to move when they did, and Packard signed the lease on Conner mere days before the announcement of the closure of the Hudson facilities in Detroit, which would make the Hudson body plant available. Romney also distorted the timeline regarding Conner, saying that Nance moved on it "shortly after" Mason died (October 54), six months after Packard had actually leased Conner.

Romney also said that the "grand plan" was real and had been in the works for years, confirmed that Mason had direct talks with Packard, both before Nance started with Packard, and with Nance. Odd that he declined to be interviewed in the early 70s when Richard Langworth heard about the "grand plan" from Nance and went searching for confirmation, as he had never heard of it before.

I sat down recently and reread the article John Conde wrote about the flip charts he had worked on for Mason's merger presentation to the Packard board in 54. The proposal is stunningly slanted in Nash's favor: Hudson and Packard dealers required to sell Ramblers. All Hudson and Packard models to be badge engineered Nashs. Nash honchos in charge. If I was sitting on the Packard board at the time, I would instinctively know that the Packard clientele would not buy a tarted up Nash, the cars would fail in the market and Mason's proposal was Packard's death warrant. Ed Barritt may have had similar misgivings as, by one account I read last year, he extracted a promise from Mason to keep the Hudson brand alive, and he resigned from the AMC board in protest when Romney broke that promise.

What if the three way had come off as Conde's flip charts described? In 57 both the Hudson and Packard names and the senior Nash platform the cars rode on, would have been killed and the facilities on Conner and E Grand that built the senior platform would have been closed. In 58, AMC would look very much as it actually did: Kenosha cranking out Ramblers, and selling them through thousands of extra dealers, former Hudson and Packard dealers, while enjoying cash flow from Hudson and Packard legacy service parts sales, with Hudson and Packard put out of business.

Did Mason's "grand plan" evolve the way it did over years, or was Mason's plan a cynical dealer grab from day one?

Yes, Jim Nance may have been a premadonna who engaged in more than a bit of revisionist history to avoid personally wearing Packard's collapse, but I would say Romney was every bit as much a premadonna and did plenty of revising himself.